Half-Real: A Video Game in the Hands of a PlayerA Lecture by Jesper JuulNovember 28th, 20065-7pmMIT CampusRoom 1-136Free and open to the public

Here's Juul's description of his talk:

What happens when a player picks up video game, learns to play it, masters it, and leaves it? Using concepts from my book on video games, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, I will argue that video game players are neither rational solvers of abstract problems, nor daydreamers in fictional worlds, but both of these things with shifting emphasis. The unique quality of video games is to be located in their intricate interplay of rules and fictions, which I will examine across genres, from casual games to massively multiplayer games.

And a little about Juul:

Jesper Juul is a video game theorist and assistant professor in video game theory and design at the Centre for Computer Game Research Copenhagen where he also earned his Ph.D. Additionally, he works as a multi-user chat systems and casual game developer. He is currently a visiting scholar at Parsons School of Design in New York.

November 27, 2006

The holiday shopping frenzy has begun. The first official shopping weekend of the holidays started early Friday morning. Today is what internet retailers call "Cyber Monday." There are so many hi-tech gadgets out there that make perfect gifts. But how do you make sense of it all and get the right digital camera, cell phone, or computer accessory for your family and friends? All the choices can make even the most technological saavy of us dizzy. Luckily, John Maeda is here to help us all out. In a recent issue of Parade magazine, Maeda, a professor at MIT's Media Lab and author of The Laws of Simplicity, provides some easy tips for keeping it simple while shopping for electronics. Here are two:

Administer the single-breath test. If the sales clerk can’t explain how to use a gadget in a single breath, it’s probably too complicated. Say “thank you” and walk away—you’ll save yourself a lot of misery down the road. Go with what you know.When you’re accustomed to a specific brand of technology, you’ve learned how to live with its quirks. When you’re on the hunt for a new device, buy the same brand to save yourself some time. “Fooling around” with a different brand can be exciting, but you’re much more likely to end up with regrets.

November 17, 2006

What are the social and cultural implications of being able to talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time? If you’ve ever been stranded on the side of the road with a broken down car, you’ve surely felt a sense of relief when you can flip open your cell phone and dial a tow truck. But when a high school student can text message her best friend in another class to plan their weekend activities, the situation becomes something different. Today at the UC Berkeley School of Information, Manuel Castells, author of Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective, will give a lecture on how the possibility of multimodal communication affects everyday life at home, at work, and at school.

Few people set out to cut their life short, but smokers greatly increase their chances of dying sooner than nonsmokers. In his book "The Price of Smoking," Frank Sloan, director of the Center for Health Policy, Law and Management at Duke University in Durham, N.C., details the financial impact of a shorter life span on retirement benefits.

"Smokers, due to higher mortality rates, obtained lower lifetime benefits compared to never smokers, even after accounting for their smoking-related lower lifetime contributions," the research says.

Sloan and his colleagues found the effects of smoking on lifetime Social Security benefits were $1,519 for 24-year-old female smokers and $6,549 for 24-year-old male smokers. Essentially this is money paid into Social Security but never collected because the beneficiary died prematurely of a smoking-related illness.

"You could be paying into Social Security year after year, and if you die at 66 because you're a smoker, it's money down the drain," says Sloan.

November 15, 2006

Technology has opened up a whole new world for us. Our lives are loaded with technology that power and convenience. Yet, we want technology to be easy to understand as well. It’s an interesting paradox. John Maeda has been looking at this idea of simplicity and how we can use it to make our lives without sacrificing the conveniences of technology. He founded the Simplicity Consortium at MIT’s Media Lab, he has a blog dedicated to simplicity, and his new book, The Laws of Simplicity offers ten simple guidelines which help us need less, but get more. Recently, he spoke with Linda Matchan for a Boston Globe article on, you guessed it, simplicity:

"Achieving simplicity in the digital age [is] a personal mission," says Maeda. "We are all seeking simplicity."

We may seek it, but it’s not easily achieved, as the average befuddled consumer is reminded at this time of year. With Christmas less than seven weeks away, it’s hard to hide from the retail onslaught of ‘‘must-have’’ gadgets, tech products, and home accessories, many of them impenetrable without a user’s manual, plenty of them of dubious relevance or value to the planet.

Matchan finished by asking Maeda what simple product he admires. His answer:

I like the simplicity of chopsticks," Maeda said. "As a design, they are just two sticks. They don’t even have to be perfectly straight. You can break two small branches off a tree and scrape off the bark on the ends that will touch your mouth. Voila! Tool and nature intertwined in harmony.’’

Also, Maeda spoke with Tom Ashbrook on NPR's On Point about simplicity without sacrificing yesterday. You can listen here.

Founded in 1928, NEQ focuses on the cultural and historical significance of New England. Contributions cover a range of time periods, from before European colonization to the present, and any subject germane to New Englandís history. NEQ will be an outstanding addition to our list and will be a good companion to the Press's other journals in the area, in particular Daedalus and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

NEQ will debut as an MIT title with the March 2007 issue. For more background information on the journal, visit the NEQ web site.

November 07, 2006

It’s Election Day across the country. The debate over Iraq, political corruption and Republican dominance of Washington may produce the highest midterm turnout in decades. As we wait until the ballots are counted to see if the Democrats will take over the House and Senate, one interesting thing to consider is the use of the Internet in the campaign—how it has been both a valuable and destructive tool for candidates, their supporters, and adversaries over the last several election seasons. This past Sunday, Larry Bensky’s KPFA radio program, “Sunday Salon,” discussed corruption, voter disenfranchisement, and Web campaigns. One of the guests was Steven M. Schneider, coauthor of Web Campaigning. In the book, Schneider and Kirsten Foot discuss how electoral campaigns in the US employ Web technologies to enact and extend campaign activities. Listen to the show here.

And here’s a lesson we can all learn from Dick Cheney from the 2004 election:

On October 5, 2004, during the only televised vice-presidential debate of the 2004 U.S. campaign season, Dick Cheney attempted to send debate viewers to the Web site of a non-partisan research group associated with the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania, called factcheck.org. Cheney sought to defend himself against claims his opponent, John Edwards, made about Halliburton—an oil-services company that also provides construction and military support services—and Cheney’s involvement wit it. According to a transcript of the debate posted on the Web site of the Public Broadcasting Service, Edwards said,

While [Cheney] was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false information on their company, just like Enron and Key Lay. They did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States. They’re now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period of time. Not only that, they’ve gotten a seven-and-a-half billion dollar no-bid contract in Iraq. And instead of part of their money being withheld, which is the way it’s normally done because they’re under investigation, they’ve—they’ve continued to get their money.

Cheney’s Web troubles began with a slip of the tongue when he replied,